And Graf Adam had turned and staggered from the room.
When he had gone, she had sunk back in her chair, with a beating heart and trembling limbs.
A minute later she had heard a shot.
Gräfin Jadwiga closed her eyes, hoping thus to change the current of her thoughts. She clasped her hands over her face. In vain! The memories of the past persistently haunted her!...
She thought of the wretched time she had passed through immediately after her husband's death—when she had been expected to weep and show grief for his death, although her only feeling had been a dumb horror. She had gone abroad as soon as she could. Life at the castle would have been unendurable in those days.
She remembered how she had shone as a queen of fashion in luxurious Paris salons. She had seemed happy then, for her smile had been frequent, and her conversation both brilliant and witty. But in reality she had not been happy, because she had not been able to forget, and because the gay world and its amusements had not filled the void in her heart.
Then temptation had come to her....
A fair-haired, pale, foolish ruler: the curse of his country; the worthy son of a half-imbecile father and a vicious mother.
Pah! She had thrust him from her presence in disgust.
But hundreds of others had been at her feet, not only rich and handsome, but also good and true-hearted men. And she had loved none of them.